


Quomodo sedat sola civitas

by alisand



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-30
Updated: 2012-03-30
Packaged: 2017-11-02 17:49:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/371707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alisand/pseuds/alisand
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All Saints Day 1981</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quomodo sedat sola civitas

All Saints Day had dawned cold and clear.

 _These are an old man’s hands,_ Remus thinks _, not mine at all._

“My dear boy,” Dumbledore had said, “with all the fuss we’d forgotten.”

They shake, palsied, the scars stretch and bend. _I was a fool_ , he thinks, _I have never been wise._

Dumbledore speaks slowly, gently as though trying to calm a wild thing. _You should have come last night if you wanted the beast,_ Remus thinks, but does not say.

 _I have never seen you so serious,_ he thinks, _or so grave_. He does not laugh. He does not cry.

“Tea?” he asks.

  _Pity?_ he thinks.

He looks at his warped reflection in the burnished steel of the kettle and sees his mother’s eyes. _So, this is what you were thinking that day. That day they told you your son was a monster._

Sirius had told him that there was no better night to be a werewolf than Halloween; "A good night to be a monster", he'd said. Remus can’t quite recall the rest, the memory of his face a half forgotten song. Had his smile really been so sinister? Had his teeth flashed, white and dangerous? _A monster indeed_ , Remus thinks the tone very nearly wry _._

“What will you do now?”Dumbledore asks voice laced with kindness, “The Order…”

 _Quomodo sedat sola civitas plena populo,_ Remus thinks, _a cracked teacup, a muggle record player, an unmade bed- are not so much to leave behind, not so great a loss._

“I’m going to leave,” he says “and not look back.”

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm doing this thing where I write for an hour and then post whatever I write to try and overcome my anxiety about people judging me. Good? Bad? Anything is game.


End file.
